Tom rounded the corner, moving faster at the sound of muffled, ear-grating laughter. He wasn't sure if he'd care normally— nothing was inherently wrong with laughter— but his gut told him something was wrong. Very wrong. The feeling had been growing in the pit of his stomach all morning and needling at the back of his mind, though he couldn't for the life of him he couldn't pinpoint the source.

He slammed open the door to the woman's lavatory, not caring about what it looked like to passerby's.

"There you are," he breathed.

Ophelia looked up in alarm, her hair disheveled and silent tears snaking their way down her face, as though she didn't even know they were there. She lurched back from where she'd been huddled on the ground at the base of the sink, but seemed to slip, and collapsed sideways. She didn't get back up.

It was obvious what she'd slipped on and it wasn't water, despite a certain ghost's very best efforts to flood the whole floor. Blood.

Tom crossed the room in a few short strides, ditching his bag somewhere along the way.

"Go away, Tom," she muttered wearily, the few words seeming to take all her energy. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm still... avoiding you."

"What have you done?" he demanded, looking around wildly for the source of the blood, for any wound that could explain it.

"Oh, I'd check her arm," Myrtle contributed with a giggle, floating dreamily out of a stall behind him.

Although Tom didn't acknowledge her gleeful taunts, he slid back the sleeves of Ophelia's robes, ignoring her weak attempts to bat him away. The torn fabric stuck like still-wet glue to her skin and so much blood covered the actual wound he almost missed the fact that there wasn't just one puncture but two. He flipped it over to examine the other side— probably a bit too roughly in his growing panic, because she flinched— and found another matching wound going the opposite direction. Furthermore, just above them, in the few spots that weren't coated with blood, the skin bloomed into a kaleidoscope of blues and purples, greens and yellows.

She inhaled sharply through her nose. "Could you not?"

He got the impression she was going for annoyed, or even sarcastic, but the fight just wasn't there.

"Who?" he heard himself ask. It wasn't the time for it- he was wasting precious seconds- but he needed to know. "Who did this to you?"

The anger rising in his chest was both simultaneously quashed and multiplied when Myrtle giggled again. "I found her like this, all alone. It was absolutely dreadful."

"OUT!" he snarled. "GET OUT!"

Splashing from one of the stalls alerted him to the ghosts departure, but he didn't look away from Ophelia. He couldn't.

He didn't know what to do. She was bleeding out too fast, turning the area around them where Myrtle had flipped on all the faucets a deep shade of pink.

"Go away, Tom," Ophelia repeated, softer than before. "There's nothing you can do. Even you... cannot fight death."

"Open your eyes," he ordered, shaking her harder. She needed to get to the nurse immediately, before she lost too much blood. If she hadn't already. "Stop talking nonsense and tell me who did this!"

"I can't do it anymore, Tom," she whispered, not paying him any heed. "I tried, but I can't."

"Can't what?" he asked desperately, as he pulled her into his arms, one arm under her knees, the other at mid-back and tried to stand up.

She fought him weakly, finally wriggling out of his grip.

"I chose you over Myrtle, a girl you'd accidentally got murdered and we both knew it, I chose you over Hagrid, a child with no one else to protect him, and let him take the blame for a death he had no part in. I chose you, and I can't live with myself." Her voice hitched at random points as she struggled to breath, yet she plowed on. "I can't keep lying for you, but I'm also too much a coward to turn you in. I can't live like this... I can't live like this, and it's all my fault..."

"None of it is your fault. Nothing."

Her eyes flickered back shut.

"Ophelia?"

She didn't stir.

"Wake up!"

Her body that he'd pulled tightly to his chest felt far too limp. A lifelike doll.

He screamed her name again. Ordered. Demanded. Pleaded. Nothing. The shouted words echoed throughout the cavernous room, bounced on the walls down the corridor, until they finally drew the attention of professors, ghosts, and students alike.

Eventually, someone ripped Tom away, forcing him to land on his elbows in the blood stained water. He'd never been so thrilled to see Professor Dumbledore in his life, even when he'd appeared in the doorstep of Wool's Orphanage all those years prior. This was a different type of joy, however, closer perhaps to hope.

He scarcely noticed someone else dragging him to his feet by the arm and couldn't have named the person responsible. They were unimportant. All that mattered was if Ophelia would be alright. Shouts rang out all around him, but they seemed distant as he watched Dumbledore run his wand along her arms. Her skin weaved itself back together beneath the professor's watchful gaze one second, only to come back apart just as quickly in the next.

"She losing too much blood," the deputy headmaster said evenly to no one in particular, conjuring up a stretcher. Despite his calm tone, his eyes remained sharp and his movements quickened. "We need to get her to the the Hospital Wing immediately for a blood replenishment potion. I don't know what manner of wounds these are, but they're rejecting my magic."

As Tom made to follow them out, Dumbledore held out a weathered hand to stop him.

Piercing him over his half moon spectacles, he said, "Not you, Tom. I would like a word in my office about this."

Immediately, any fleeting gratitude he felt for the old wizard vanished.

"You can't make me go anywhere, Dumbledore," he stated, eyes narrowed into slits.

He made to push past, but Dumbledore held firm.

"It's Professor Dumbledore, Tom," he said with frustrating calm. "I can assure you, Miss Ashwood will receive the best care available. There is nothing more you can do for her. What we need from you is to get a grasp on what has happened if the nurse is to know how to treat her."

There is nothing more you can do for her. In other words, "You'll only get in the way."

The words rang dangerously close to how he himself felt. It only fed into his anger, however, begging him to lash out, to wipe that pitying look off of Dumbledore's wrinkled face.

"If anything happens and I'm not there..." he trailed off, not sure how to follow up what was beginning to sound like a threat.

Fortunately, they were interrupted.

"Dreadful business, Albus," Slughorn wheezed, striding quickly down the hall from the opposite direction Ophelia's stretcher had gone.

Tom hadn't even noticed it depart.

Dumbledore had succeeded in distracting him, at least, as was no doubt his intention.

"No!" he snarled, lunging past them. "Ophelia!"

"No, Tom." Dumbledore said, pulling him back with surprising strength for such an old man. "You will know as soon as anything happens, but for now you must partake of the most difficult task imaginable: you must wait."

Without further ado or a backwards glance, he hurried down the hall, robes fanning out fluidly behind him, leaving Tom feeling like a lone stone caught between conflicting currents, unable to move even if he wanted to.

Those wounds... No nurse could heal that. No amount of blood replenishment could counteract the venom pumping through her veins. There was no cure for a Basilisk bite, and Tom had no doubt that's what it was. What else would have bled so profusely and refused to heal when Dumbledore— even Dumbledore himself— tried to heal her? Added with the location he'd found her in and her incriminating words and Tom was certain he'd have realised sooner had he not completely lost his head.

I chose you, and I can't live with myself for it.

The sound of her voice crept softly through his mind, whispering, numbing, and turning the world dull grey.

She had been a fool for sneaking into the Chamber, and even more so for thinking she could kill the Basilisk by herself. All she'd achieved was getting herself killed- and for what?

Gradually, the professors and students trickled away, even Slughorn, when they accepted that Tom could scarcely hear them, let alone be coerced to follow. He became a new statue to add to the school's already impressive collection.

Blood stained his hands. It trickled down his fingers and dripped to the rippling water around him. One drop. Another. And another. Her blood. Her. She was gone. She coated his fingers as a second skin. Her veins drained across his robes and onto the floor. And she was gone.

Gone.

Not caring for the consequences, a deafening silence ringing through his mind, he reopened the chamber. In truth, it was more than silence. It was simple absence. Absence of light, noise, thought, and especially emotion. In a deadly calm, far more lethal than any rage he could have mustered, he made his way to the main antechamber where the Basilisk waited.

"How dare you?" he snarled in Parseltongue.

"How dare I? That creature came down here to kill me," It hissed back, slithering closer and rising to its full, impressive height.

"I pulled you from the throes of a centuries long sleep and you disobeyed me. You disobeyed me, so now you shall sleep again."

"You dare presume to force me back into that existence? Me?"

"I gave you two orders: don't hurt the girl, and stop attacking students. I could overlook the second, believe it was an accident, but the second?" Tom looked up coldly. "Be grateful I don't kill you while you slumber on, defenseless for years to come."

The basilisk reeled back, fifty feet of curling scales and contracting muscle. To any other, it would have been a heart-stopping sight. Tom didn't so much as blink, so cold was his fury and true was his conviction, and when the beast lunged, his voice was as detached and hard as granite.

"Sleep."

The effect was immediate. A flipped switch, one second, it was flying forward with a murderous, singleminded focus, and the next, it was falling, all momentum lost. At last, it's diamond-shaped head skidded to a thunderous halt at Tom's feet, who spared the creature one last look of contempt that didn't quite fit the carved beauty of his features. He turned away, not bothering further with the beast that had the whole chamber trembling with the weight of its unconscious breath. He didn't turn back.

A/N

Fun fact: this was the first chapter I wrote for this book, but the original draft was far darker. In the end, as I wrote the book and got attached to the characters I decided I'm not quite as cruel as I was planning to be. Ultimately, I only had to change I couple of paragraphs to completely alter the entire thing though, so the brunt of it is the same. I suppose that's more of a not-so-fun fact huh?

To be continued... whenever I get around to writing the next chapter I guess. Be grateful I didn't go through with the original plan though. It was mega-yikes.